Greek authorities plan to prevent the ultranationalist National Party from standing in next month’s elections in a move that could alter their results. The party reached the 3% threshold in opinion polls (necessary to attain parliamentary representation) with authorities alleging that the National Party has links with the banned Golden Dawn.
This is just the latest legal battle between the Greek state and the ultra-Right faction. The neo-fascist Golden Dawn party was banned in 2020 and the majority of its leadership jailed.
Lawmakers confirmed their wish to block the National Party—acknowledged by many as the continuation of the Golden Dawn due to its overlap of members and leadership.
While the National Party (NP) is small, its exclusion could change the calculation of May elections that will see centre-right New Democracy fend off a challenge from the leftist Syriza. New Democracy is expected to win comfortably in May’s parliamentary elections with the campaign trail dominated by the issue of immigration.
The ban will likely benefit the more moderate Greek Solution Party (ECR) as Greek politics are still transfixed by the fallout of last month’s train tragedy.
The Greek Parliament already passed prohibitive measures against the NP in February, with the party’s founder and former leader Ilias Kasidiaris behind bars for Golden Dawn membership. Kasidiaris had previously resigned as the NP’s leader to help sidestep a ban on standing in elections.
The NP was founded from a split in the Golden Dawn in 2019, with authorities fearful that the party is just a flag of convenience for the old Golden Dawn. The NP has repeatedly denied any links to national socialist ideology.
An explicitly Neo-Nazi group, the Golden Dawn reached an electoral peak of 7% in 2015, capitalising on Greece’s economic turmoil, but was banned for its links to violent extremism, in what Golden Dawn supporters called a politicised witch trial.
Unpleasant to many, the prohibition of nationalist groups in Greece underlies the political hypocrisy of European liberalism.
